Sunday, September 16, 2007

362 players bought into the first ever WSOPE £10,000 main event championship. After one grueling week of poker, spread out over three different casinos, we have our final table of nine fortunate souls, one of which will take home a first place prize of £1,000,000. In US dollars, that's a cool $2 million. Of course, the prize pool fell short of that mark, but BetFair.com added prize money to the pool so first place could win £1 million.

The payouts were top heavy and not much different between 11th and 36th place. That meant action on Day 4 was fast paced. There were 10 bustouts in the first two hours of play.

Gus Hansen bubbled off the final table in 10th palce on a cooler. He went out with the Hilton Sisters versus Matt McCullough's pocket Kings. That hand propelled McCullough into the chiplead. He's the only American at the final table. When I asked him if her preferred to or by Matt or Matthew, he said, "Matt. Unless I win, then it will be Sir Matt!"

All eyes are on Annette_15. I predicted that she'd win in yesterday's post. She took over the chiplead at one point, then got crippled when she three-bet all in with 3-3, only to lose to the Hilton Sisters. She looks like she's in high school (because she is). She speaks nearly perfect English and has been chatting it up with Change100 all week.

If you play online poker tournaments, you have probably come across Annette_15. She's been taking the poker world by storm over the last few months. Her real name is Annette Obrestad. The 19-year old student is from a coastal town in southwest Norway that was once considered the herring capital of the world. These days, it's the home town of one of the best online poker players in the world.

Some people consider her to be the best female No-Limit Hold'em player in the world. Some consider her the best NL tournament player under 21-years old in the world. And others consider her one of the best online NL tournament player... period. It's hard to argue with her outstanding record.

Her appearance at the final table marks her coming out party. For the first time, the poker world can catch a glimpse of the prodigy. She's often in the top spot on Pocket Five's leaderboard and has won their Triple Crown. Most people don't know about her yet, because she's not old enough to play in US-based tournaments.

Annette_15 has been crushing the competition online over the last year. In the first two weeks of May of this year, she's earned over $68,000! That's substantially more money than most adults make in a single year. She final tabled the $2,500 buy-in World Championship of Online Poker main event on PokerStars last year. Last month, she took down the $500K on Full Tilt, where she put on a clinic at the final table.

There's a rumor floating around that she started playing online poker at the ripe age of 15, hence the screen name Annette_15. She got her first exposure to poker from her father who taught her how to play five-card stud and seven-card stud as a young girl. She eventually signed up for an online poker account and as the legend goes, her mother refused to let her fund an account with a credit card so Annette_15 ended up winning $9 in a freeroll and has not looked back since.

At the tables, Annete_15 is fearless. She's tough to read and is willing to play any two cards. She's an aggressive player and will re-raise you with absolutely nothing if she senses the slightest weakness. She's a shark at the tables and often destroys veteran NL players, which is mind blowing because most girls her age are more interested in going to the mall or spending endless hours on the phone instead of multi-tabling several tournaments.

Annette_15 busted Annie Duke at the featured TV table on Day 4. She also busted Jen Harman. At one point Annette_15 held the chiplead. She comes into the final table 5th in chips. She is trying to become the youngest WSOP bracelet winner of all time.

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